Ash
by Tragedy Tay
Summary: She's an assassin in a world with no one left to kill, so she's not sure what use she has anymore, other than to sit on Tony Stark's floor with the remaining detritus of his life. Movieverse apocalypse fic. Gen and Tony/Pepper.


Title: Ash

Summary: She's an assassin in a world with no one left to kill, so she's not sure what use she has anymore, other than to sit on Tony Stark's floor with the remaining detritus of his life. Movieverse apocalypse fic. Gen and Tony/Pepper.

A/N: thanks to my beta, her name is batman. everyone likes vague apocalyptic events, right?

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Natasha Romanoff has killed a lot of people.

Can you grasp what that means?

She doesn't really feel good about it, but she doesn't quite manage to feel bad about it either. She doesn't even feel odd about it, not even in a this-is-your-life-and-what-the-_fuck _kind of way.

But she has felt someone's pulse end against the palm of her hand. A last breath has been gasped over her face. She has a talent. A talent that people need - it's been proven to her time and time again. She's done terrible things, of course she has, but she's most assuredly done good as well. People have to die. Always. If there is one great equalizer for the human condition, she's found it. She shouldn't deny the people what they need; hold back what she's been put here to do.

Picture this: she has entered a room filled with people who want to kill her, left the room spattered with blood that doesn't belong to her, and she has been the only one to leave that room. She did not falter in her step. Do you understand? She can do that, and that? Can be a Tuesday.

It's just a fact, and it's not everything you need to know (it's not everything about her, not by a long shot), but it's important for right now.

It's tantamount to understanding the situation, to understand this.

Natasha Romanoff has been present at the deaths of men and women, and she has stood firm and strong for every year of her life. And you can't do that. You just can't.

It takes a special kind of person. Maybe someone already dead, maybe a monster. Maybe just someone doing what she is damn good at. Regardless, Natasha Romanoff is not the type of person to dwell on those kinds of thoughts.

What you have to understand is that Natasha Romanoff is scared shitless right now.

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"Oh," says Rhodes when he opens the door. "Okay."

He steps back to let her through, helps her brush off about two inches worth of the dust that suffocates and clings.

It was a near-miss, a very near-miss. She hit the remains of the house, but it was probably 90% by chance. She could maybe have made it another few miles without stopping. Maybe. And it's the stopping that'll get you; you have to keep moving.

Your body tricks you. Turns against you. Natasha's body has only worked for her. It has served her well, and she is eager to carry on in that grand tradition.

And this place is as good as any. Because if anyone could survive this, it's the invincible Iron Man.

Invincible being the key word, here. Or just the last prayer.

Or maybe she just tripped over his door completely by random. Visibility's been low. Understandable.

She was sadistically trained, her emotions obey her absolutely: her relief remains undetectable and she is as stoic as she's ever been. But she hasn't seen another person in four days, and she hasn't eaten in three.

James Rhodes may as well have hung the goddamn moon.

Not that you could see the moon if you tried.

Looking up is a bad idea. Remember that.

"You've gotta be kidding me. Jesus Christ, you're a fucking _cockroach_," Tony says when Rhodes leads her in to the living room (and never has a term been more apt).

His eyes burn, his face is streaked with ash. He looks uncomfortable, but still not unhappy to see her. The emotions are muted, tinged with grey like everything else. But here he is.

There's a campfire on the floor, like some bizarre Junior Campers don't-do-this video. The house is tall and open enough that smoke isn't an issue yet here on the ground floor.

It's not like Tony Stark would ever care about his damn home. Beyond somehow keeping a tenth of it standing (the house _was _on a cliff and now it is not, so that is very impressive) he has no qualms with setting it aflame and chopping it up into spare parts.

Potts sits on the floor, her legs splayed, ends of the overlarge pants she has on frayed and burnt. Her face is pallid, grey. She tilts her head just slightly when Stark speaks, away from the noise.

Hogan sits near the door, outer-edges. He doesn't move. He has his tie in his hands, he's absently rolling and unrolling it over his fists.

Rhodes takes his clearly predetermined place on the other end of the couch, puts his feet on what looks like the other half of a coffee table, and presses his hands to his eyes, brushing away the dust that comes in, through cracks in windows and doors and on her skin.

She hasn't been fully clean in a month, but no one really has. So don't take it personally.

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It's much quieter than it's ever been in this house before, and Natasha mostly feels like she wishes she had brought more guns.

She doesn't use guns, as a general rule. She's supposed to keep things quiet.

But she's finding that she likes them.

Sleek, shiny. They do what you tell them to. Loud. She used to find that so…_vulgar_, almost. Garish. A boom, and a body crashing. No finesse required.

She didn't usually even bother with them before (_like she was somehow better for it_, she won't admit to herself).

She's bothering now.

She's an assassin in a world with no one left to kill, so she's not sure what use she has anymore, other than to sit on Tony Stark's floor with the rest of the detritus that made up his life, and listen to him mutter to a Philips-head screwdriver as he plays with a few pieces of scrap that leak oil on everything around them.

Pepper shivers, and Stark pats her shoulder, carefully ignoring how she winces away, he doesn't let go.

No one else speaks much.

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There's food here. Cans. Ramen noodles. Bottled water. The whole shebang; a couple of big crates full of it. Enough to look like forever, until you realize it's already been two weeks, and there are five of them here, and some mangy dog that Tony let in on day nine.

Natasha, Rhodes, and Happy placed bets on what color the mutt would end up being while Tony tried and often failed (_spectacularly_) to bathe him.

"You know, I saw a television show like this once," Happy offered, rubbing his hands together for warmth. "Turned out the dog was actually a rat."

Rhodes made himself a cool twelve dollars when the mustard yellow coat finally showed through the dust.

"I'll spend it wisely," he assured them all, before tossing it into the fire.

"You'd think that would be a disturbing and sobering heap of symbolism to pile onto our increasingly dire situation, but the fact is that I used to do that all the time," Tony said, comfortingly. "It's okay, buddy, we still get it."

Rhodes shoved him hard enough for the sleeve of his jacket to light up in the fire, and that was their entertainment for the evening.

Pepper seemed to like the dog, but it was hard to tell with her. He had endeared himself to Tony by making her halfway smile. And also by taking a dump in Rhodes's shoe. The two events were unrelated.

It's not like he's not a big dog, he doesn't even come up to Natasha's knee.

But he eats.

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Pepper is becoming a problem.

She moves when she's moved, eats when someone puts food in her hands, falls over asleep where she sits when she's tired.

She doesn't talk. They don't talk to her, except for Tony.

Tony's becoming a problem too, for that matter.

Natasha's dragged at least half of the story out of Rhodes and Hogan in vague, whispered conversations. They have to be careful, because Tony won't listen to anything about it. Something happened to Potts, that much is clear to all of them, but none of them saw it.

It's interesting, really, from a psychological standpoint. He's so calm about this whole thing, like he's planned it out, like they're all having some month-long sleepover where no one goes outside, and they watch gobs of grey filth congeal in the tide when they get bored, which is always.

"Admit it," he says to Pepper one day out of the blue. "You always thought if this happened, it would be at least thirty-eight-percent my fault."

He keeps talking to her like that. Like she'll answer him. Natasha narrows her eyes.

It's a problem. Tabled for now, but a concern for later.

"Admit it," he says again, his voice closer to a whisper, and it occurs to Natasha that he can't see her. He doesn't know anyone else is here.

The thought disturbs her, more than it would with anyone else. She's never had any desire to see Tony Stark when he lacks an audience. Even if he shuts up every now and then, it's just depressing to see him like this..

He pushes a lock of Pepper's hair behind her ear, and his eyes are caves, foreboding, too dark for any kind of comfort.

Pepper leans back as far as she can, looking at nothing in particular, off in the indiscernible distance, and Tony looks like he might cry.

Yeah, it's going to be a problem.

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They have some weird mush that's probably supposed to be squash (please god, let that be the reason for the fluorescent orange color) for dinner. They've given up trying to have sides, entrees. It's just a waste, so they eat one thing at a time.

"You were the kid who made his potatoes into Play-Doh, weren't you?" Natasha asked, watching as Tony sculpts something that looks suspiciously like a shark.

"As much as you were the kid with the spud gun." Tony stuck out his tongue in concentration until the dorsal fin slumped. "Fuck. Look, Pepper, Free Willy."

Rhodey had been glaring all night. All day. Hard to tell now, but it's probably daytime-ish. "Tony," he said, grinding his plastic utensil into his plate so hard that it snaps.

"You know, we have a limited number of sporks," Tony said, never missing a chance to say the word. "I'd appreciate – "

"Tony," began Rhodey again, more pointedly.

"What?" asked Tony, the grin still pasted to his face. He's holding onto three of Pepper's fingers, she's calm for once, letting him touch her without a fight. That's probably why Tony's in such a good mood, honestly.

Well, no. He's always in a good mood.

"Forget it," Rhodes grumbles, stabbing the end of the spork into the mush. He gets angry, he blows up. He's broken more of Tony's stuff since their camp-out started than Tony has. There's information there, Rhodes knows something. It's guilt, rage, or something else, but he knows something, and that makes him interesting.

There are going to be a lot of problems. Natasha knows that. There are always problems. This situation is not unproblematic, and she is not an imbecile.

But she still shivers a little, becuase she really has only ever known one way to fix things.

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End file.
